The present invention relates to musical instruments and, more particularly, to stringed musical instruments having soundboards, such as guitars.
Stringed musical instruments have been played and enjoyed, both by players and listeners, for many years. These instruments are often characterized by a body, a neck attached to the body, and one or more strings suspended under controllable tension from a bridge mechanically coupled to a soundboard of the body to a hub located at one end of the neck. As the string is vibrated by suitable means such as picking, plucking, strumming, bowing, hammering, tapping, or scratching, the vibrations induced in the string are transmitted by the bridge to the soundboard. The body collects and directs the sounds by exciting air proximate the soundboard.
While stringed musical instruments have been refined and improved over the years, they have been characterized by some drawbacks, such as non-linear frequency response. In particular, unacceptably low output amplitudes for the lower notes of the instrument's voice and lack of clarity between courses, that is, frequencies generating by sounding one or more strings, are drawbacks of conventional stringed musical instruments.
The “Sound Bubble” series of instruments addressed some of the drawbacks of conventional stringed musical instruments. The Sound Bubble is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,362,079, Ribbecke, issued Dec. 7, 1982, which is hereby incorporated by reference. The Sound Bubble instrument includes a thin, dome-shaped accentuator plate located on the bass side of the soundboard. The Sound Bubble instrument achieved an articulate clean bass and separation between courses often associated with an arch-top. However, more bass output, i.e., higher amplitude of the lower frequencies, was desired.
Therefore, a need still exists for an improvement in stringed musical instruments that both enhances the bass response, that is, increases the volume of the low notes or bass frequencies, and provides the desired articulation and separation between courses.